More Direction

After class on Tuesday 19th, I was able to get more specific direction for my project from everyones comments and suggestions.  Since I have worked a bit on this project last semester I have been able to think about it for awhile.  I was able to write a rough draft to help give me some direction and found it to be much easier (in-depth dare I say) to stick to a more specific topic as apposed to an overall view of holistic health and healing.

Some ideas that were brought to my attention in class that I would really like to look into for direction in my project is:

1)  Assessing one specific ailment (ie. cancer) through case studies to see the benefits and disadvantages of various treatments (holistic, drug therapy etc.)

2) Looking into the issues going on with the current health care reform.  Is there funding currently for holistic measures?  Is there conversation of room for holistic practices in a new health system?

       I must admit I was a bit hesitant at first to tackle much of anything to do with the new health care reform in my project.  I personally felt it was possibly biting off more than I could chew.  Yet the more I contemplated the idea, I began to realize this may be the most important time to merge the two.  I feel with the right approach this could be a great direction to look into.

Overall, I found the suggestions and questions in class a great direction for my project.  I do believe the more specific I get the better I will be able to research and conclude on ideas in my field of study.

 

Brainstorming

I think this is a subject that has been looked at and researched to see the benefits and disadvantages of holistic medicine.  This I feel is that this is a similar situation as to research has looked at our current medical approach and it’s benefits and disadvantages.  I hope to find in this research how the United States medical system could benefit from incorporating more holistic aspects into our current system. 

            Some topics that I think I can research to help develop this topic are as follows.

1)   Alternative medicine

2)   Eastern vs Western medicine

3)   Body, mind approach to medicine

I would like a large part of my research to involve how using a multidisciplinary medical approach may improve our health care in the United States.  

Some ways I can look at this topic or problem is through different avenues.  I would like to look at any research, which may have been done on this topic.  I think I would also benefit from drawing from books on this subject.  Lastly I think it is very important to look at case studies that may show a variety of viewpoints on holistic medicine practices.

My course of study

My course of study is concentrated in nutrition, health and psychology.  With this concentration I am hoping to be able to grasp an overall look into health and wellness with more of a holistic approach.  

How are nutrition, health and psychology related?  I feel that for so long people have had more of a one-track mind when it comes to health and wellness.  People often try to treat a health problem instead of questioning and possibly finding that this one health problem is actually the result of many problems.  I believe if more people treated a health problem from many different angles or, might I say interdisciplinarily we might be far more efficient in the health field.

Throughout college I found myself having trouble studying in just one discipline of nutrition, health or psychology for the very fact that it seemed to be a dead-end road.  Yet realized no one department seemed to actually tie other disciplines into their own like I was trying to obtain.  One example of how I try to look at a health issue assessing the whole person as apposed to just the problem would be if a child was brought to a psychiatrist for being hyperactive, and were to be prescribed a medication to help control this hyperactivity.  My question would be to find out what the child’s habits are, sleeping, food intake, and physical activity to name a few.  If these other things are not examined it could be completely over looked that the child may be eating an over abundance of sugar, not partaking in physical activity and does not have a consistent sleeping schedule.  If we do not question to obtain a holistic approach we are only trying to treat a problem when we know nothing about the whole situation contributing to the problem.